Late summer tour in Denmark and Germany

We have been playing together for many years and now we are getting ready for another tour. The American violinist Ruthie Dornfeld and I met in the mid-80s, and have played together ever since, not least in the trio ACO (American Café Orchestra.

In the last few years, we have mainly played as a duo, and this time we start in Germany on the small but progressive Windrose Festival which is located in Schwerin, the second largest city and capital of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It was, among other things, here that the Danish king, Valdemar Sejr, was imprisoned with his son, after they had been abducted one night in May 1223 by the German count Henrik of Schwerin, when they had gone to rest after a hunt on Lyø.

At the Windros Festival we will partly play a concert with a mixture of traditional and self-composed music, partly play for dance, and partly participate in an international festival band, the 'Windros Orchestra', which, according to tradition, arranges and rehearses music for in the days leading up to the festival a one-hour festival concert on the main stage on Saturday evening.

This year the band consists of the following musicians: Jo Freya (GB): Saxophones, clarinets and vocals, Ruthie Dornfeld (USA): Violin and vielle, Morten Alfred Høirup (DK): Guitar, vocals, Doc Rossi (USA): Cittern, guitar , Michael "Wacki" Waterstradt (D): Contra bass and Wolfgang Meyering (D): Mandola, mandolin, percussion and singing.

After the festival, where we are not least looking forward to experiencing some of the many exciting German bands that have rediscovered traditional German folk music in recent years, we are heading home to Denmark, where we have a handful of concerts in Frederiksberg, and in Dragør, Vejstrup on Funen and in Aarhus (See more here).

After the tour in Denmark, Ruthie goes home to Seattle, but the duo will meet again when we go on tour in the state of Washington on the American west coast already in November 2019.